Story+1981-08-20+Los+Angeles,+CA

‘‘Listen, listen for a second, tonight we’re here for the men and the women that fought the Vietnam War....yesterday, yesterday I was lucky enough to have met some of these guys and it was funny because I’m used to coming out in front of a lot of people and I realised that, that I was, I was nervous and I was a little embarrassed about not knowing what to say to ‘em and.....it’s like when you feel like you´re walking down a dark street at night and out of the corner of your eye you see somebody, you see somebody getting hurt or somebody getting hit in the dark alley but you keep walking on because you think it don´t have nothing to do with you and you just want to get home....well, Vietnam turned, turned this whole country into that dark street and unless we, unless we´re able to walk down those dark alleys and look into the eyes of the men and the women that are down there and the things that happened, we’re never gonna be able to get home and then it´s only a chance, you guys, you guys out there, you’re 18 or 19 years old.....it happened once and it can happen again so I guess all I am saying is you gotta go down there and you gotta look and we got the easy part because there´s a lot of guys here tonight that had to live it, live it every day and there´s a lot of guys here that made it home to America but died and didn´t make it down here tonight so what I wanna ask you to do is I wanna ask you to give a few minutes of your attention and listen to a friend of mine, a Vietnam Veteran named Bob Muller....(Bob Muller: ‘Thank you......very exciting to be here tonight, it’s a great night for Vietnam Veterans, you may have been hearing about Vietnam Veterans and not really understand what it’s all about, very simply there was a lot of controversy and a lot of pain surrounding the tragedy of Vietnam and because of that, a lot of people are trying to forget it and pretend that it never happened.....that doesn’t do much for the families of the 55,000 Americans that were killed in Vietnam, it doesn´t do much for the 300,000 that were wounded fighting that war....but tonight is the first step in ending the silence that has surrounded Vietnam.....it is the beginning of thanking all the people that have worked so hard for these years all over the country, people like in L.A : the Shad Meshads, the team leaders from the Vet centers, the Center for Veterans’Rights, all the Vietnam Veterans and it’s bringing us together and by that it’ll make sure that the programs are enacted, it’ll make sure that the lessons are learned and that the Vietnams aren’t allowed to happen again....the last thing I’m gonna say.... it’s a little bit ironic after the years that we´ve been trying, when the businesses haven´t come behind us and the political leaders have failed to rally behind us, that when you remember the divisions within our own generation about the war, that it ultimately turns out to be the very symbol of our generation, rock’n’roll, that brings us together.... and it is rock’n’roll that is going to provide the healing process that everybody needs so let’s not talk about it, let’s get down to it, let’s rock’n’roll....)”
 * 20.08.81 Los Angeles, Ca, intro to ‘Who’ll Stop the Rain ?’**

‘‘This is uh.....this is a song I wrote.....about two, two or three years ago for....for Elvis Presley....(?) there’s certain things, there’s certain things in your life that you sort of mark, mark the years by....and I remember when I was nine years old and I was sitting ....in front of the tv set and my mother had ‘Ed Sullivan’ on and on came Elvis....I remember right from that time, I said, I looked, I said ‘I wanna be just like that’....but .....but I grew up and I didn´t wanna be just like that anymore....because he was like, he was like the biggest, the biggest dreamer, he was like, you know, the big liberator ....and I remember I was sitting at home when a friend of mine called and told me that he´d died.....and it wasn´t, it wasn´t that big a surprise at the time ‘cause I’d seen him a few months earlier in Philadelphia....and uh, it´s uh.....you know, I thought a lot about it, how somebody who’d had so much could in the end lose so bad and how dreams don’t mean nothing unless you´re strong enough to fight for ‘em and make ‘em come true.....(?) hold on to yourself.....this is ‘Bye Bye, Bye Bye Johnny’....”
 * 20.08.81 Los Angeles, Ca, intro to ‘Johnny Bye Bye’**

‘‘Here’s uh, here’s another song about fathers and sons.....”
 * 20.08.81 Los Angeles, Ca, intro to ‘Independence Day’**

‘‘I remember when I was.....I was growing up, everybody was always....going to quit school and get to work.....and I was watching my friends, they´d quit school and they’d, they´d go work in the same factories that their fathers did (?)....and we had a big plastic company just on the outside of town and ‘soon as you got old enough, you’d go scooting out there looking for a job or something and.....as I got older, I thought back and I realised that my old man, he worked in a factory and that his father before him, he worked in a factory.....and if I hadn´t been lucky, I’d ended up doing the same thing....but it was....about.....we just did a tour over in Europe and while we were over there, I read this book, I was looking for a book to read and I saw this book, ‘History of the United States’....and....and I didn´t remember nothing about it from school, really....and I read it and I learned, I learned a little bit about....how, how you end up a victim and you don’t even know it....how you end up....how what happened to my father happened to him and how there´s nothing in the world to keep, keep it from happening to me or happening to you guys.....but you gotta know about it and in this book, ‘The History of the United States’, you can find out a little bit because it’s all in there, it’s written, it’s written on the wall and it’s never, it’s never gonna change by itself, never ever....and unless you can find out, find out about where you come from and where you wanna go, you can build up the heart and muscle to go there..... because otherwise.....you end up.....someplace where you don’t know where you are and you don’t know how you got there, you don´t know how to get back from there..... you end up trapped.....”
 * 20.08.81 Los Angeles, Ca, intro to ‘Trapped’**

‘‘Thanks.....I used to.....I started to play this song, I guess, when we were towards the end of the last American tour and we were over in Europe, this song was written by Woody Guthrie.....and people, when I was, I remember when I was over, I think I was, I was in France, somebody asked me how I could sing this song when I knew that it wasn´t true....and the title of this song is ‘This Land Is Your Land’....and that’s like a challenge, I guess.....that’s like, uh, that’s a dream that no matter how much it gets stepped on or run over, that don’t ever, don’t ever die....this is for you guys.....”
 * 20.08.81 Los Angeles, Ca, intro to ‘This Land Is Your Land’**

‘‘Thanks.....sometimes something....something happens to you that changes the way you look at things (?)....this is uh, this is ‘Wreck on the Highway’.....”
 * 20.08.81 Los Angeles, Ca, intro to ‘Wreck on the Highway’**

´´Bring it down now, boys....alright, ladies and gentlemen....now we have come to the most interesting part of the show, the band introductions.....(?) first, I’ve been playing with these guys a pretty long time....and I´ve got to confess they’´ve kind of got close to my heart.....(?) decrease in pay, no (chuckles) first, first I’d like to introduce Roy, now, Roy’s close to my heart, I’ve got a poem for Roy.....‘R’ stands for ‘Roy’ ‘cause that’s his name.....‘O’ stands for ‘piano’ ‘cause that´s his game.....‘Y’ because he likes it....Roy Bittan on the piano, ladies and gentlemen.....now, Miami, I ain´t got a poem for him yet so let me just say he´s the poet of the soul, master of rock´n´roll, the man who brought you such great hits as ´I Don´t Wanna Go Home´, ´Sweeter than Honey´, ´This Time It´s for Real, ´Some Things Just Don´t Change´, ´Daddy´s Come Home´, ´Trapped Again´, the great ´Miami´ Steve Van Zandt....on the bass guitar, we got handsome, debonair, (?) I’m talking to you about all the way from Neptune, New Jersey, Mr.Garry W.Tallent....on the drums, we got the king of the big beat, I’m talking about the mighty one, Mighty Max Weinberg on the drums....on the organ, we´ve got a man, now you see him now you don’t, (?) Phantom coming all the way from Flemington, New Jersey to play for you here in Los Angeles tonight, I’m talking about ´Phantom´ Dan Federici....now here comes my....tour de force....I don’t have to tell you who I’m gonna introduce next....I don´t blame you for being excited....ladies and gentlemen, ´C´ is for cool, which only a foolish man would dispute....´L´ is for lean and mean and (?)....´A´ is ‘cause he´s the ace of the saxophone.... ´R´ is ´cause he´s a regular guy even though he´s world reknown....´E´ is for his everlasting love which I hold so dear...´N´ is for nasty, mess with him and your face he will smear....´C´ is for that C-note he owed me since last year....and ´E´ is for everything else, you put that together, what´s that spell ?....what´s that spell ? .... what´s that spell ? ....Spotlight on the Big Man !....” (....) This is his last chance, baby, to get his daughter with some high finance.....‘cause the record company, honey, just game me the big smacaronis !.....”
 * 20.08.81 Los Angeles, Ca, middle of ‘Rosalita’**

//Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi//